I want to be clear, I didn't mean users could change what the pool does.
I only commented on this part
If you actually own a miner that isn't able to connect to the pool due to difficulty settings, there should be plenty of methods to tweak that locally too
So tweak what exactly?
Connecting to OCEAN pool the performance of miners was the same as to different pools, and I've personally checked this using external monitoring.
Great then, the burden is on him to prove his claims, he needs to post solid evidence or else, nobody would take his claims seriously now that someone has came up with a counter claim.